The Wondrous World of Zed Nu
by T-Amandella
Summary: High school junior Morie Eri suddenly finds herself in this strange world and, to make matters worse, she's thrown into a life-threatening situation. Whisked away by a mysterious name by the name of Zed Nu, Eri sticks with him in order to get back home, but this "Zed" man may not be as innocent of the situation as he seems. Rated M(certain scenes strong language).
1. Chapter ONE: The Wondrous World

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The girl quickly flashes her eyes open. She finds herself squished into a small crawlspace. Upon closer inspection, she realizes that she's hiding under someone's bed, but she doesn't know whose.

From what she can make out, she can see many pairs of feet—some hiding behind what is possibly a scarlet window curtain. Those five pairs of feet barely poke out from the curtain, suggesting that there's a considerable amount of space between it and the wall it covers. Looking around as best as she can with her limited field of vision, the girl can make out a smallish figure poking out from the side of a faraway desk. The figure squirms to keep itself hidden, as its protruding hand waves back and forth until it gets flung into a puddle of red liquid. The hand furiously shakes after a second, as if trying desperately to get the liquid off of itself. The girl lets out a small gasp, as she notices small drips of the same red liquid on parts of the hardwood floor. She shoves herself back, now shaking at the sight of what she can now recognize as blood everywhere. She grabs at her shoulders, trying to calm herself down, but she knows that she cannot stand the sight of blood. Her body started to shake more vigorously as she notices more and more spatters on the walls and door across from the bed she's currently under. The girl can feel her eyes starting to tear up, but her oncoming panic attack is soon stopped by the sound of footsteps.

They are very loud and sound like there is more than one person causing them. As the footsteps grow louder, the door suddenly flies open and a moderately large burlap sack is thrown into the room. The sack forcefully lands at the foot of the bed, and the girl begins to pray that whoever just entered the room doesn't find her. She swiftly glances over to the desk in the far corner, where she can no longer see the small figure's hand poking out. Steel-toed boots stomp over to the burlap, kicking it over and pulling a small figure out of it. The small figure had light green wings on its back, which were now thrashing about.

"Let me go!" a tiny voice cries, "I told you, I don't know anything! Let me go!"

The girl scooches towards the sack in order to try and get a glimpse of what is going on in front of her, but makes sure to keep hidden. She can see two pairs of legs guarding the door, and watches as a well-kept pair of black dress shoes walk into the room, shutting the door behind it.

"Well, what about this little lady?" a man's well-mannered voice asks.

"She insists that she knows nothing," a threatening female voice replies.

"I don't! I really don't!" the tiny voice adds, "I don't know about this 'Xenith' person!"

There's a short moment of silence before the more masculine voice lets out a sigh. The pair of black dress shoes tap loudly on the hardwood, as the well-mannered voice says, "Well, certain things are deemed as 'useless' for a reason, and I have no need for such things." The dress shoes take a step over to the steel-toed boots and a short whisper is let out:

"…rid of…now," is all the girl can make out.

Immediately, the cocking of a gun is heard as the more threatening feminine voice lets out a chuckle. The tiny voice pleads for its life, desperately gasping until a loud gunshot is let out. The girl shuts her eyes and covers her ears as a soft thud follows shortly. The burlap sack begins to squirm violently, as whatever else is left inside is now panicking. The steel-toed boots kick the sack across the room, where they smack into the faraway desk. A few seconds of silence pass, as the girl slowly opens her eyes to see if anything worse has happened, and to her dismay, she finds the bloodied corpse of a tiny woman dressed in green lying directly at the foot of the bed. The gun must have been fairly larger than the tiny woman because her head has been blown off completely as blood spurts out from the body, staining the delicate, bright green wings on the back.

The girl can't stand it. She feels a scream welling up from her throat, but she knows that she'll reveal herself to the ruthless killers in the room.

'… _O-oh, God! Where am I?!'_ is all the girl can mentally ask herself as she begins to panic. As she is about to let out a whimper, quiet retching can be heard throughout the room, causing everyone to stare directly at the far desk.

"Well, what's this?" the man's well-mannered voice asks as he shoves the desk off to the side, "Another—wait. What is _this_?" He drags the figure out of its hiding place, revealing that it is another girl of small-stature with dirty blonde hair and green eyes. The girl immediately recognizes the dirty blonde as one of her classmates and a close friend to her.

' _M-Mandy! But why is s—_ '

"NOOOOO!" screams the dirty blonde, "Please! Don't hurt me!"

The Mandy-girl shoves what looks like a well-dressed man away as she scrambles for the door. A woman with bright red hair in a black overcoat immediately grabs Mandy's wrist and throws her down onto the floor.

"Well, that was just rude," the well-dressed man says as he dusts himself off, "And here I was just going to ask you a few questions—your _kind_ doesn't seem to be from here." The man kneels down to closely inspect Mandy's face; running his gloved hands through her dirty blonde hair and gently pressing on her cheeks. He gets closer and stares Mandy in the eyes, quietly adding, "…but you don't even look like her." Mandy refuses to say anything back, being more concerned with the man's ruthless-looking accomplice that towers over her from her left. The well-dressed man stands back up and pushes his long red hair back.

"I'm guessing you know nothing either," he sighs. Mandy bites at her lip and looks up at the man's accomplice, who squats down and points her gun at her forehead. A click can be heard, but the well-dressed man gently presses the ruthless woman's trigger-happy hand away.

"Not now, Cornelia," the man interjects, "She may be feigning ignorance."

The woman now identified as Cornelia pulls her hand back and lets out a sigh. She quickly spits off at the floor, almost having her wad of spit land on Mandy's face.

"Boss, you're too naïve," she says, hinting that the man's actions annoy her.

"Maybe a little naïveté can do you some good," he curtly adds.

"B… But what if that fairy you killed was faking it?!" Mandy shouts, "You killed her regardless!"

An awkward silence fills the room, as the clicking of a gun can be heard again—this time, the man has the gun in his hands. The girl under the bed clasps her hands over her mouth as tears stream down her face. All she can do is hope and pray that her friend's life doesn't end like this. Not over something they know nothing about.

The man lets out a small chuckle and says, "You're right. I guess I have no need for you then."

A loud gunshot echoes as multiple gunshots follow.

Red is all that can be seen running on the hardwood floor. The girl desperately gasps as quietly as she can, grieving at her friend's pointless death, however, her quiet gasps don't go unnoticed. The well-dressed man walks over towards the foot of the bed and peers under it; his bright yellow eyes meeting the girl's teary ones. He reaches his arm out, trying to grab at the girl as she frantically scooches as far away as she can. The girl shuts her eyes as the tears refuse to stop. Gasping for air, the girl curls up into a ball, praying that her life can and will be spared.

"Help me out here," the man orders. Before she can register everything, the girl forces her eyes open, only to see that this Cornelia woman lifts the bed up from one side.

"N-no, please…!" is all the frightened girl can let out. The man creeps under his accomplice's arms and grabs at the frantic girl's beige sweater-sleeve, tugging her out of the corner.

"Please!" the girl begs, "I-I can be useful! I promise!"

"I doubt it," the man replies, adjusting the black fedora sitting on his head. He reaches for the silver hand-gun as he drags the sobbing girl closer towards the middle of the room—closer towards her friend's bloodied lifeless body. Cornelia drops the bed back onto the floor and tightly grips at the sobbing girl's hair. The girl keeps begging and sobbing as if the man who's about to end her life will have a sudden change of heart and let her live. However, there is no chance of that happening, but her tears refuse to stop as she keeps pleading, "P-Please! Please…!"

The blood that lies all over the floor stains the girl's clothes as she tries to break free of this cold woman's grip, but all of the girl's thrashing gives no results.

The well-dressed man grabs the silver handgun and forcefully smashes it against the sobbing girl's face. Blood runs out of the girl's nose, replacing almost all traces of snot that was once there. She's no longer pleading at the top of her lungs, but still lets out a few whimpers. The man takes a moment to take in the girl's pitiful state as he clicks the hand-gun, but before shooting, he notices faint bulges sticking out from behind the scarlet curtain. Motioning towards the curtain helps to notify his rough accomplice, who rips them off; understanding the silent message given.

Ripping the curtain off reveals five other children that were also in hiding. Two of these children seem to be the girl's age, while the other three look like their ages range from as young as seven to as old as ten.

The oldest-looking one has a faint, but noticeable scar on his right cheek, stretching out from his right earlobe. His hair is a blonde mess with leaves and bits of twigs tangled within it, and he appears to be clutching at the black scarf that looks as if it were sloppily thrown on. The one next to him was another person the girl could recognize: a girl with silky black hair and brown eyes wearing the same uniform. Her hair is sloppily tied into a small ponytail that rests on her left shoulder, with a few notable freckles that dot sides of her face and neck. The three younger ones all appear to be identical: messy red hair with blue eyes. The two youngest ones have a small beauty mark on their left cheeks while the older one does not. All children don't appear to be frightened by the threatening people in the room, but the girl with the silky black hair immediately flinches at the sight of the sobbing girl.

The well-dressed man quickly points the handgun at the children, but the boy with the blonde mess of hair tackles him down, as if on instinct. He grips at the man's wrist, causing the silver handgun to be flung into the air and land on Mandy's body. The rough-looking Cornelia rushes for the boy, yanking her captive along, but gets knocked over by the two younger redheads lunging onto her ankle and the right side of her waist. Cornelia rolls onto bloodied floor, regains her footing and throws the girl she kept held down at the young redheads. She immediately lunges at the blonde boy, grabbing hold of his arms and hoists him up in a way that makes him incapable of breaking free. The well-dressed man picks up the handgun, flicking the blood off it, and points it at the girl with silky black hair.

"I know it's you," he snarls, now unable to contain a rage that wasn't originally there. The girl is now panicking—she has no idea what this man is talking about and has a gun pointed directly pointed at her. She looks directly at the blonde boy—who's trying to break free of the woman's grip—as if he can get her out of this situation.

"DON'T LOOK AWAY FROM ME!" barks the well-dressed man, whose face now contains an unbridled rage for the frantic girl in front of him.

"I…I—!"

 _ **BANG!**_

A loud gunshot echoes throughout the room, but just as the bullet is less than a few inches away from her face, the black-haired girl vanishes—her figure is replaced with bright-violet petals, bursting upwards and flowing around the room with a gust of wind that was not present earlier.

The well-dressed man and his accomplice are wide-eyed at the sudden presence of the mysterious flower petals. The man quickly faces the door where his bulkier bodyguards are supposed to be standing, only to see that they're suddenly missing. He grits his teeth and screams with all of his frustration, "WHERE DID THEY GO?!"

In the confusion, the blonde boy elbows the Cornelia-woman in her stomach and bites her arm. Cornelia slightly flinches at the blow to her stomach and flings the boy off of her arm, causing part of the sleeve of her overcoat to rip off. The boy lands on his back and spits out the bunch of black cloth in his mouth. The well-dressed man furiously shoots at the children, but the petals swirling around the room become more densely-packed, blocking his view. The bullets fly around the room, shooting holes in the walls, desk and bloodied floor. The children scramble for the window behind them and leap from it. Cornelia rushes at the escaping children, accidentally kicking at something—the girl whose face is still covered in dried blood from the blow to her nose from earlier. She coughs and gasps at the pain inflicted from Cornelia's kick. Cornelia reaches for the girl, hoping to kill her or take her along once she and her boss get out of this situation, and as she grips at the girl's brown locks, a voice echoes through the room:

" _Don't…_ "

The well-dressed man recognizes the voice and starts to angrily swing at the swirling violet petals. Impatient and in a rage, the man shoots wildly at around the room.

"You coward!" the man shouts, "Show your damned self already!"

A chuckle is heard, as the same voice continues:

" _Seems like you've never learned patience…_ "

The swirling petals gain speed as they begin to amass themselves in front of the desk in the far corner where Mandy hid. They collect together until they seem to form a moderately tall and statuesque figure. The well-dressed man repeatedly shoots at the amassing figure but the excess petals fly out at him. He instinctively covers his face with his hands to shield them from the flying petals which now feel like multiple knives flying at him. Cornelia pulls her boss out of the way, and the well-dressed man moves his hands away from his face once he feels that the petals have stopped cutting at him.

Standing in front of the far desk was a man. A moderately tall man with hair as white as snow and seems to be as soft as cotton. He wears a purple vest with gold trimmings over a shirt the same color as his hair, with a blue sash over it. His eyes look as purple as the twilight, and he stands in a way which emits a certain amount of natural grace. The mysterious man takes notice of the mangled-up girl lying on the floor below the window and reaches out to her, but stops once the well-dressed man shoots at his extended arm. The mysterious white-haired man quickly draws his arm back as the bullet whizzes by.

"Don't move," the well-dressed man orders in a threatening tone of voice, "I'm taking you with me."

"What makes you so sure?" the white-haired man asks with a small chuckle.

The man's gentle smirk irritates Cornelia, which can be seen by her slightly gritting her teeth and tightening grip on holding her boss back. He tilts his head over to the left, looking innocent and unaware of how much irritation he's causing to the people in front of him. In an instant, he lunges for the battered up girl. The well-dressed man shoots at him and Cornelia rushes at their mutual target, but this man is too nimble for the both of them, as he darts directly in behind Cornelia, causing her to be shot twice in the back by her boss. The well-dressed man quickly utters, "Shit!" at the instance his handgun can no longer fire bullets.

The white-haired man swiftly picks up the girl from the floor and leaps out the window with his only conscious opponent chasing after him.

The well-dressed man stops to look out of the window, only to see a large fall as high as three-stories and nothing but tall trees stretching out as far as the horizon. He slams his fist against the outer wall of the building and furiously screams, "DAMN YOU!"

His scream echoes through the forest. As his echo seemingly fades away, the well-dressed man angrily stomps over towards his accomplice, hoisting her over his left shoulder, grabbing the burlap sack and storms out the bloodied room.

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… _p…_

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… _W…ke…_

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 _H…!_

 _W…up…!_

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 **. . !**

A sudden sharp pain courses through the girl's beat-up body; the pain being more prominent at her right side.

Coughing and gasping for breath, the girl curls up into a ball, gripping at her side like she can make it stop somehow. She forces her eyes open to try and see what could possibly be happening to her now, but she only becomes more and more confused.

The girl is laying in a field of grass, but the grass is thick, curly and purple like somebody had just laid a strange carpet on every part of the ground. She props herself onto her knees and sees a large body of water a few inches in front of her. The body of water looks large enough to be a lake, but the liquid has a color that resembles the night sky that the girl is so familiar with—speckled with bright but faraway dots. Somehow this strange lake is still able to reflect things off of its surface, showing a giant willow tree that stands on the opposite side.

The willow tree seemingly reaches into the sky above, with its branches stretching out as far as the girl can see. The branches that lay on the ground have beautiful flowers blooming off of it, with some even floating some few inches above, and the branches that make no contact with the ground droop towards it, with long and silky leaves fanning out. The leaves' color ranges from a blue as deep as the ocean's to a dark, Russian violet color, as they seemingly try to hide the ivory trunk of the willow tree. Much smaller versions of the towering willow tree surround the field from afar, with leaves that are only a dark orchid shade.

The girl stands up and pats at her uniform and notices that sparkling-colored glitter is being patted off. She looks at her hands but none of the sparkling glitter sticks to her skin. Quickly twirling around, the girl notices these tiny, shimmering lights flying about like a bug would. Upon closer inspection, that is what these little lights are: bugs! Strange-looking beetles as small as the fingernail on her little finger that aimlessly fly around the curly purple field. One of these shimmering beetles land on her little finger and quickly hop off, continuing to aimlessly fly about in a clumsy-looking fashion.

The girl lets out a giggle as the strange little beetle flies away. As confused as she is, the strange purple field she's filled with a sense of amazement and wonder—the kind of wonder that a child may feel if they could suddenly fly away with fairies to Neverland. She brushes her short brown hair behind her shoulders and stretches her arms out, taking in the air and the scenery. As she's just about to bring her arms down, she feels something grips at her sides.

Immediately filled with fear, the girl begins to panic and squirms around. Her feet are now off the ground and her squirming turns into thrashing about. She's lightly thrown into the air a bit, and finds her dark brown eyes being met with deep purple ones. Long, snowy hair practically blankets the person's face as his mouth forms a toothy grin.

"So are you wide awake now?" the man innocently asks, holding the girl up off of the ground.

"W…what?" the girl peeps, even more confused than she was before. Who is this man and why is he holding her like a small child? What is this place? It doesn't look normal and there are no existing documents of the mystical place—not even in myths or fairytales. The man's purple eyes blink twice and he childishly asks again, "So are you wide awake now?"

Not knowing how to react, the girl sheepishly nods as she can feel herself getting flustered. She's being held like a child! Held by some tall and handsome man she's not familiar with in the slightest! What is he going to do and why does he appear so innocent of the marvels around him? The man lets out a small chuckle as his toothy grin becomes a warm smile. It's such a welcoming smile, almost as if he's just inviting a new friend into his home.

' _Maybe this strange world is his home…_ ' the girl thinks to herself.

The man lightly throws the girl into the air again and says, "Oh good! Y'see, I thought I came too late and that you might've been dead!"

"D…dead?" the girl immediately asks with a tinge of fear in her small voice, "W-what do you mean?"

"Well I rescued you!" he answers proudly, "From earlier! Remember?"

The girl can remember all of the events that happened up until the she was thrown across the room by a remorseless woman. After slamming into the three small redheads, everything else becomes hazy and dark.

"I-I can't remember such a thing…" the brunette says disappointingly, her eyes now downcast, afraid of damaging this man's pride.

There is a short moment of silence until the girl is lightly thrown into the air and caught by the strange man again.

"Hey!" he barks energetically, "You shouldn't feel sad if you can't remember. I know that I saved you because you're still alive!" He let out another chuckle as his toothy grin comes back. The brunette feels her face getting hot, refusing to make eye-contact. Turning her face away from the snowy-haired man, she sheepishly nods in order to confirm his statement. She looks around at the magical scenery for a moment, turns back to the man still holding her up and quietly asks, "Do you know…where we are?"

"Where do you think we are?" he happily asks back.

"W-what?"

"Where do _you_ think we are?" he repeats.

"I-I don't know!" the brunette shouts softly, "That's why I asked! I…is there a name for this place?"

"A name?" the man asks, now confused by the small brunette's question.

"Y-yes. A name. Does it have one?"

"…What do you think it's called?" he childishly asks.

"Excuse me?"

"What do _you_ think it's called?" he repeats.

The girl scratches at her head, thinking that this conversation is going nowhere, _fast_. She lets out a frustrated sigh and looks the man directly in his purple eyes. The scenery isn't the only thing that's strange. Can people have naturally purple eyes? He could be wearing contacts, but what about his hair then? He doesn't look elderly, and he doesn't look like someone whose hair would go white from stress or lack of nutrition. His attire looks like it's from a completely different time period and he's walking around barefoot! Is he too poor to be able to afford shoes?

As the small brunette becomes both confused and intrigued by this man's appearance, she quickly asks, "Who are you?"

"Who am I? Well, who are _you_?" the man parrots.

"Answer me first, please," the brunette sternly replies.

"Why don't you answer me instead?"

"Because I asked you first."

"Answer _me_ and I'll tell."

"Now you're just being difficult."

"We both are."

The girl vigorously scratches at her hair with both hands. She's starting to get fed up with this man's childish act. Before she gets too upset, she takes a deep breath and calmly breathes out.

"Okay, okay," she calmly repeats, "Okay, okay."

The man blinks twice as he awaits her answer. Silly little beetles clumsily fly around the two as their silence continues.

"Morie," the brunette says blankly, "Morie Eri. That's who I am."

The man warmly smiles at Eri as he brings her closer to his face. As the space between their faces shrinks and shrinks, Eri gets more and more flustered. She shuts her eyes and bites at her lips until she's suddenly stopped. A small pause. Eri carefully opens her eyes and finds herself directly in front of this man's face with their foreheads touching. She's glad that it isn't some sudden and random kiss, but she still finds herself too close. Every small exhale that left the man's nose hit her face, but thankfully, his eyes are closed. Another pause.

"W…W-what are y—?"

His purple eyes flutter open. Eri flings herself out of his grip and lands onto the curly purple grass. The fall didn't hurt as the odd grass was as soft as a plush quilt. Many shimmering tiny beetles frantically fly away from where Eri landed. The man looks down at her and kneels over in order to make proper eye contact.

Staring at her directly, he quietly repeats her name. Embarrassed by this, Eri turns away from his face while also trying to hide how red hers has become. He lets out a chuckle and boldly says, "That's such a bland name!"

Slightly insulted by his remark, Eri looks back to see what kind of face he's making. Being greeted with his toothy grin, Eri grits her teeth and lightly shoves the man away.

"No need to be rude!" she shouts, "It's a pretty and simple name—not 'bland' in the slightest!" Eri shoots upwards onto her feet and stomps towards the man, who easily towers over her. She pokes at his chest and places both hands firmly on her hips.

"What's _your_ name anyway?" she rudely demands, "I answered you first, so now you have to tell me! I bet it isn't any better than my 'bland' name."

The man gently pats at Eri's head.

' _I want to be angry at you, quit it_!' she thinks to herself as she desperately tries to keep up her pouting face.

"Zed," he replies.

"What?" Eri asks, caught off-guard by his sudden answer.

"Zed," he repeats, "I said I'd tell you my name if you answered me first, and you did."

"So 'Zed'…right?"

"Zed Nu."

"Zed…Nu."

"Yes!"

Eri is left completely perplexed by what the man claims to be his name. As far as she knows, nobody on Earth has _that_ sort of name, but if that's what he'd like to be referred to as, then who was she to simply deny that?

"Okay… _Zed_ ," she says again, wanting confirmation on his name.

"Yes Eri?" he asks, obviously referring to her by her first name.

"Please…d-don't do that…" she quietly tells him, "J-just refer to me by my last name."

"But if I do that, then you'll have to call me by mine," he says, kneeling down to her eye-level, "It'll sound weird and I prefer 'Zed'. You should prefer 'Eri', too."

She can't understand how he can just drop formalities as if they don't matter anymore. People would think things, right? Are there even any other people around? Other than her, Zed and the people who harmed her earlier. Eri firmly slaps both of her cheeks and quietly asks, "Where are we?"

Zed doesn't respond immediately. Instead, he stares up into the sky, which looks like an air-brushed rainbow, starting from a fiery, sunset red and ending at a cottony, midday blue.

"You see, the sky isn't supposed to be like that," Eri says as she points up at it, "The grass and trees aren't supposed to be like this either."

Zed looks back down at Eri and blankly asks, "They aren't? But they always have been."

Even more confused by his answer, Eri crosses her arms and tells him that the sky is only blue where she's from, and that the trees aren't such a pretty orchid color, but are mostly green. She points at the willow tree that seemingly reaches into the sky and adds, "Trees don't get that tall either. They can get pretty big, but nowhere near as tall as that one."

Zed scratches at his head, even more confused by her description of such a foreign land. He's never heard anything like a world like that and just thinking about how it could possibly be true seems to physically hurt him.

"I don't know what you're trying to talk about," he blurts out, "It's always looked like this. Trees only get green leaves when they're dying, the sky has always been like that and that tree's been that tall since the beginning. Wherever you say you're from sounds made up."

"Something like all of _this_ wouldn't be around where I'm from," Eri barks back, "In fact, I don't even know how I got here."

"Maybe you fell in."

"What?!"

"Maybe you fell in," he repeats.

"How would I fall into a place like this?" she sarcastically asks.

"By not paying attention and falling in," Zed continues, "It's not that hard to explain."

" _How_ would I have fallen in," Eri impatiently asks, emphasizing her words so that Zed could give her a proper answer that would make better sense than his previous ones.

"By falling into a hole," he blankly adds, "Or somebody dragged you here."

"Then _who_ did?"

"How would _I_ know when _you_ fell in?"

" _I_ don't know who did!" she shouts, "I don't know if _anyone_ did!"

"Then maybe you fell in."

Another conversation that's making absolutely no progress. Eri lets out a frustrated cry and throws herself onto the curly purple grass. Zed sits himself next to her and rests his index finger on her small nose.

"I'm not being difficult," he tells her, "I'm just answering your question."

Eri sighs and swats his finger off of her nose. She grips at some of the grass, yanks it out of the ground and lazily tosses it at Zed.

"Answer me this then," she demands, "Have you seen anyone who's wearing the same clothes as me?"

There's a pause. Zed moves closer to Eri in order to get a good look at her uniform. After scanning her clothes for an embarrassingly long minute, he swivels his head back and forth and confirms that he has.

"How many?" Eri asks.

"Two," he answers, placing his hand on Eri's chest.

"Where are they?" she asks again, brushing his hand off.

"One is being taken care of," he says, placing the same hand back on Eri's chest. He pats her breasts for a few times and continues, "Her breasts aren't as nice as yours, but the other one is dead."

Eri lightly slaps Zed across his face as she sits herself upwards, covering her chest with her other arm. She quickly remembers her friend with the dirty blonde hair who was shot multiple times by that well-dressed looking man and his accomplice in dark clothes. She can feel tears welling up in her eyes, but before crying, she asks Zed where the other one is.

"Back home," he says blankly, rubbing at the cheek Eri had slapped moments before.

"And where is that?"

"I plan on taking you back anyway," he remarks, "So just follow me."

Eri sheepishly nods as she places a hand over her nose. On the verge of sobbing again, she feels small jolts of pain shoot up the bridge of her nose as a small stream of blood trickles down her left nostril. She remembers how the well-dressed man slammed his hand-gun against her face, and this memory cause her to wince in pain. She gradually starts to cry as she notices all of the bloodstains all over her uniform. How she wasn't able to notice them until now was beyond her. As images of her friend's bloodied, lifeless body suddenly swarm her, Eri falls to her knees and breaks down. Zed simply and gently pats her head to try and provide comfort. He keeps reassuring Eri that those people cannot find them in their present location as she continues to cry. These words help calm her down after a good two minutes, and she eventually stops.

Her eyes are red and puffy and her sweater-sleeve is stained with blood and snot from trying to wipe it off of her face. Still sniffling a bit, she looks up at Zed, who's calmly sitting next to her with his left hand still resting on top of her head. He looks down at her with that warm smile.

"All done?" he politely asks as he gently pats her head.

"…Y…yeah," she quietly answers, "…b-but I'm really tired…"

Zed stands up and carefully hoists Eri off of the ground. He lightly throws her into the air and catches her on his back.

"Well I'm still taking you home!" he barks.

A very quiet giggle escapes Eri's lips as she lays her head against Zed's back.

"Yeah…okay."

Zed marches onward to wherever he calls him. Away from the willow tree that pierces the sky, away from the strange nighttime lake, and away from the silly beetles that shimmer like tiny jewels. Eri still can't register everything that's happening around her—she still doesn't know _what_ exactly is around her. Everything looks like something out of some ancient fairytale to her; it's all too odd to even seem real. However, she's just relieved that she's still alive, and that another one of her friends is too.

Beautiful and magical-looking trees, cute little bugs, strange lakes and a rainbow sky—how is any of this possible? How could she have even "fallen in" like Zed told her? Did someone pull her in and, if so, how? How would they know of her to be able to pull her in?

All of these questions racing around in her mind just made Eri even more tired. She is already so emotionally drained, and the warmth of Zed's back as he carries her seems to lull her to sleep. She gently closes her eyes.

 _This is such a strange world… It's so wondrous too…_

 _It may be even more dangerous than mine, but…_

…

 _I… I hope I can get back…_


	2. Chapter TWO: Dresses and Princesses?

"Are you _sure_ you're washing her? She still smells weird."

"Of course I am—you can see all the soap I'm using."

"But s—"

"Then why don't _you_ wash her?!"

"I can't, Zed asked you to do it."

" _Exactly_. So quit your w—oh? Ew, she's coming to."

* * *

Eri slowly opens her eyes as if she just woke up from a long slumber. She lurches forward, trying to stretch, but something tightens around her left wrist as a man's voice impatiently calls out, "Oi! Hold still, little lady."

Eri jumps at the voice and darts her head towards her left. She finds the tall boy with the notable scar across the right side of his face and the messy bush of blonde hair arching over her left side. She also notices an older man sitting at a stool near the back of her head. He has sandy blonde hair with fox ears of the same color sticking up from the top of his head and piercing red eyes glaring right down at her. He wears scarlet oriental robes but most of his chest still shows through. Six soft-looking tails the same color as his hair slowly sway back and forth from behind him. Eri notices that this man his holding her left arm up as his other hand grips at a soapy old-fashioned loofah.

"W-what are you doing to me?!" she shrieks, springing to her feet with her face as red as beets. Water splashes upwards with her as she begins to take in her surroundings. She notices that she's standing up in a small tub of water in a room with no windows. It's lit up with bunches of candles all over the floors and hanging from the walls—their small flames floating inches above the wick. There are so many around the room that it can be seen as a possible fire hazard. Immediately, Eri looks down at the two men sitting below her. The sandy blonde man is pinching the bridge of his nose trying to hold back his irritation and the boy with the blonde mess of hair staring back at her in amazement—staring up at something he's never seen in his life.

She can feel her face getting hotter and hotter as she quickly sinks back down into the small tub, hiding her face in the water. The blonde boy hops over to the rim of the tub, eagerly watching Eri as if she's going to do something amazing. Eri looks over to her left and is surprised by how close his face is.

"…What is it…?" she shyly asks.

"Hoyoh, do it again!" the blonde boy squeals.

"H…Hoyoh?"

"Don't mind him," the sandy-blonde fox-man says bluntly as he sticks his soapy arm between his friend's face and Eri, "He's never seen… _your_ kind before."

"M-my 'kind'?" Eri repeats, confused with her face still red from earlier.

"Well, she smells funny!" the blonde boy yelps, still bouncing up and down as he quickly flicks a few twigs and leaves out of his curly mess of hair, "I mean, I told you earlier! I'm not sure you were bathing her right, Sanders."

The older-looking male sucks his teeth and flicks some of the soapy water from the loofah at the blonde boy. The boy recoils back, vigorously wiping the small bit of soap that splashed onto his face.

"Sheesh…I swear you've never taken a bath before," Sanders gruffly remarks, "No wonder you hate soap."

"Hey, now don't try to make me look bad in front of Hoyoh!" the boy barks, "You were only asked to clean her up, jerk!"

"E-excuse me!" Eri squeaks as she shoots up from the water again.

The two males stop their bickering and look up at Eri's nude body. Sanders rolls his eyes as his six tails sway from one side of him to the other, while the blonde boy starts bouncing up and down again, squeezing out a "Whoa~!" as a childish smile shoots across his face.

"I'd…like to know where I am. Could either of you tell me?" she shyly requests.

Sanders scratches at the back of his right ear as he sarcastically answers, "Oh _sure_. Maybe after you stop showing off first—I thought you people got embarrassed about _this_ sort of thing." He motions his arm up and down to show Eri how much of her body she's showing off to these two men, in all of her nakedness.

She feels her face getting even hotter as she darts back down into the bathwater, this time, with only the crown of her head visible from above water. Her face must be pretty hot as some small bits of steam seem to rise up from the bathwater. She shyly pokes her head out from the water and asks, "Could you just tell me where I am…? A-and why do you _have_ to clean me up?"

"He asked me to," Sanders blankly answers, "You know him, right? I mean he carried you here."

"… Zed?" Eri peeps.

"Yeah, _that_ goofball."

"Why would he—?"

"You were all bloody and beat up when he carried you here!" the blonde boy chimes in, "He threw you on Sanders' counter and said, 'Hey Sandy, do me a favor. Clean up my friend here, a—' and then he heard something buzzing around and ran away!"

His impression of Zed is like something a kid would do with his voice if they wanted to try and sound like their dad, which made Eri giggle. The blonde boy gives her a big toothy grin as he flicks a few more twigs and leaves out of his hair. However, she stops giggling as Sanders vigorously scrubs at her soaking brown locks, letting out an "Ow!" and a "Hey!" whenever he suddenly shoves her one way or another.

"Where d—ow! Where did Zed go any—? Hey!"

"Pipe down already," Sanders barks, already irritated by Eri's constant whining, "I'm only washing your hair."

"You could ease my head one way instead of just shoving me all over the place!" she yells again.

Sanders lets out a frustrated sigh as he dumps a bucket of cold water down onto Eri, who immediately jumps out of the tub. Before she can make any complaints, Sanders quickly and neatly wraps a towel around her and shoves her over to his blonde friend, who walks Eri out of the candlelit room.

Now in a thin, dimly-lit hallway, the blonde boy grabs Eri's wrist and pulls her along like a ragdoll. She protests loudly and asks the boy to be gentler with his tugging many times, but her requests go ignored. It's too dark in the hall for Eri to clearly make out any shapes, but her rough guide seems to know where he's going, since neither he nor Eri have bumped into anything or anyone. However, it seems like her guide somehow stops as she haphazardly bumps into something nose-first.

"Ow!" she squeaks, gripping at her nose as something warm trickles down from it.

"Oh! Sorry, Hoyoh!" a voice apologizes. It sounds very similar to the messy-haired blonde boy as something suddenly grips at both of Eri's arms. Before she can properly react, she gets yanked forward into a large well-lit room. The walls are visibly a reddish purple color, almost completely covered with books lined up on invisible book shelves. There's one corner of the room occupied by Sanders, who lazily stands behind a counter that is painted the same color as his oriental robes. Odd-looking bottles and liquids are stacked on top of each other behind the counter instead of books, and there are five small maroon stools lined up neatly in front of the counter.

Suddenly, Eri is yanked over to her left as the similar voice calls out, "Over here! This way, Hoyoh!"

"W-why do you keep calling me that?" Eri asks, still being yanked around by the scrappy blonde boy. Once they reach the corner of the room opposite of Sanders' counter, the boy stomps on the wooden floor, revealing a tiny chute with a glowing white light emanating from the other end.

"Hm? What was that?" the boy asks, but before Eri can repeat her question, the blonde boy shoves her down the chute. Almost immediately, Eri finds herself in a bright white room, with a giant window that seemingly makes up the wall opposite of where she came from. She finds a girl with silky black hair sitting at what looks like a white park-bench that is covered in tiny vines and leaves. She's wearing a beautiful indigo-to-sky blue dress with cerulean rose petals sewn into it. Eri immediately recognizes the girl by the notable freckles that dot the sides of her neck and instinctively calls the girl by name:

"Yua!"

The girl quickly turns around and finds her friend soaking wet in nothing but a towel. Yua leaps from the small park-bench and squeals Eri's name as she tightly squeezes her friend.

"Eri, you're okay!" she cries in relief, wiping away the huge pool of tears that she can feel welling up in her eyes.

Breaking away from the hug, Eri adjusts her towel and closely inspects her friend. The first question that comes up is, "How did you get here?"

"Oh! Uhm…" Yua scratches at her head and looks around the room, as if her memories will jump out at her from one of the corners, "I… don't know, actually."

She tries to play it off with a chuckle, but Eri shakes her head and asks, "How would you not know? Did somebody take you here?"

"If I don't know something, then I don't know!" her friend shouts impatiently, "One minute, I was in this room with all these rough-looking people that had you by your hair, and the next minute, I found myself in this room!"

Yua points at where the chute is supposed to be and continues, "Your little friend up there told me to wait here! But it's not like I can go anywhere—there aren't any doors!"

Eri quickly looks around the room to confirm her friend's statement, which seems to be true. She scratches at her wet hair and takes a good look at the dress Yua is in, asking her where she got it.

"Somebody threw it down here and told me to wear it," Yua replies, "When I woke up, my uniform was missing, and I definitely wasn't going to run around naked. Plus, it's such a pretty dress, too!"

She does a quick twirl to show off the pretty blue dress that she thinks makes her look like royalty. Something pokes at Eri's back, but when she turns around there is no one to be found, only a purple-colored mass of what appears to be silk. Eri cautiously picks up the purple mass and it turns out to be a gradient purple-to-lilac dress that looks similar to Yua's.

"Ooh, wear it!" Yua demands, unable to stand still, "We'll look like princess sisters! Or something!"

Eri giggles at her friend's enthusiasm as she carefully puts it on. Adjusting the waist and top parts, dusting off the bottom, and fixing up the purple roses sewn into the sides of the dress; Eri looks as beautiful as Yua in the purple-to-lilac dress. They both take in each other's appearances and giggle—it's like they're living a little girl's dream, in a sense!

The two of them twirl around the room to show off the dresses' beauty as it hugs at their figures, showing how slim they are. However, their little moment of merriment is spoiled by the sounds of repeated clicking. Immediately after the multiple clicking noises stop, a large doorway appears out of nowhere on the wall directly under the chute Eri was pushed down from. Both of the girls are surprised and a bit paranoid by the doorway's sudden appearance, and take a while to decide whether or not to go through it.

"Sh-should we go through?" Yua asks in a quiet tone of voice.

Eri doesn't respond for a minute, but she carefully tip-toes closer and closer to the doorway. Swinging her arm into it and quickly retracting it, Eri comes to the conclusion that it's safe to go in. Yua gives Eri a questioning look, as if her logic for coming to that conclusion can even be considered "logical," but she believes that her friend's instincts and intuition are better than hers, so she ultimately agrees.

The two girls stay close to each other as they make their way into the doorway. Once they are both in, it immediately goes dark—similar to the dimly-lit hallway Eri was in earlier. They stay close to the walls, carefully making their way down the dark hallway. No other objects seem to sit in the halls since they haven't bumped into anything, but the two girls quickly come to what feels like a dead end.

"A dead end?!" Yua whispers loudly, "What do you mean we've hit a 'dead end'?! D-do we have to go back…?"

Eri doesn't respond right away. She carefully rubs at the wall in front of her to confirm that it is indeed a wall and whispers back to Yua, "… It looks like we might have to go back… I… I don't feel a knob or any—"

"Hoyoh? How'd you get back here?"

That voice! It is way too similar to be a coincidence—even for a strange world like this one. Before Eri can answer the voice, she's yanked forward, and arrives back into the well-lit room with books seemingly floating off of the walls. Yua follows shortly and clumsily falls on top of Eri from behind. She tries to laugh it off, but Eri simply shrugs it off. As both of the girls get up and dust their dresses off, Eri notices that there are two more people in the room with them.

A familiar set of purple eyes meet Eri's brown ones, as a gentle and warm smile greets her.

"Zed!" she instinctively calls out.

His warm smile turns into a toothy grin as he gives her a small wave from Sanders' counter. She quickly tries to walk up to Zed, but stops as she notices someone next to him.

A womanly figure just an inch taller than Zed. Golden colored hair flows from the top of her head and neatly curl around her face. Big dark brown eyes look down at the two girls as two very tall but slim antennae poke out from the very top of her head, with a small black ring of hair around them. Her dress hugs at her slender figure, as it seems to grow outward passed the waist, hiding her feet. She wears long black gloves that seem to compliment a pair of sizable insect wings on her back. Her slender frame, her delicate light skin; she looks too beautiful to be just some random person Zed knows off of the streets.

Eri can't seem to get a question to come out of her mouth—a simple question of wanting to know how the tall, beautiful figure standing next to Zed is. Yua quickly picks up on this and loudly asks, "Who is _she_? A princess, maybe?!"

Princesses, princesses, princesses. Just a moment ago, she and Yua were twirling around in a small white room as if they looked like princesses thanks to the dresses they get to wear, and _now_ there's possibly a genuine princess standing before them? Their world might as well be one out of a fairytale.

"Princess…?" Zed innocently asks, "What's a—?"

He is interrupted as his guest gently taps at his shoulder and lets out a really weird noise that honestly sounds all too much like distorted radio frequencies rather than simple "buzzing":

"Zzzt-Gni-zzt-lrad, zzzt-ytl-zzt-ayor-zzt-a fo zzt-rebm-zzzt-em azzt."

Both of the girls are left at a loss for words. They can't make out any words familiar to them, and the tall, beautiful woman's appearance somewhat suggests that she would be speaking in an eloquent way. Sanders catches their morbidly confused looks and barks, "Oi, can't you understand? She didn't stutter."

That isn't the problem—her speech is just, _indescribable_ , to them. Yua leans closer to Eri's ear and quietly asks, "D… did you catch _any_ of that?!"

Eri quietly shakes her head, unable to stop staring at the woman. Zed peers back at the tall woman and replies, "Ooh. So are you one, too?"

"How did you get any of that?!" Eri shouts, now unable to keep in the amount of confusion and frustration she has for the current situation.

"What?" Zed asks like he's completely innocent of what's going on, "You didn't understand?"

" _No_!"

Eri is now furious that she and Yua are basically the only ones in the room that cannot understand this beautiful woman's distorted language. She didn't want to seem rude by asking about it a moment earlier, but her frustrations got the best of her—she's always had a short temper after all.

"N-no, we couldn't…" Yua nervously asks as she pulls her friend back.

The tall woman starts to look worried, as if she caused some unnecessary trouble that could've been avoided if she just wasn't around. Zed quickly looks at Eri, back at his guest, and quickly looks up at the ceiling for a moment. The boy with his blonde mess of hair sitting behind Sanders' counter does the same, mindlessly smiling without any idea as to why he's mimicking Zed in the first place.

After a while, Zed flicks his head back down and taps at the woman's shoulder. He whispers something into where her ears would be, and her face immediately flushes. She frantically shakes her head as she lightly waves her arms around, releasing more distortions from her mouth:

"Er-zzt-eh e-zzt-lpo-zzt-ep e-er-zzt-azzt e-zzt-reht, tah-zztt od tnac zzt-ew! Ozztn! Ozztn!"

There's an awkward moment of silence as the woman hides her face behind her gloved hands and nervously shuffles around. Eri and Yua are now more curious about what Zed whispered to her earlier than frustrated, as both quietly ask in unison, "What did you… say to her…?"

Zed quickly turns to face the both of them and lets another toothy grin pop across his face.

"I said that she should use her honey!" he boldly says aloud.


	3. Chapter THREE: Chest Pains

"H…her honey?" Eri asks, looking as dumbfounded as ever.

Zed's ears perk up as he barks, "Yes! Her h—!" but is immediately cut off by his tall blonde guest slipping her gloved hands over his mouth. She pulls Zed's head closer to hers as she tries to whisper something in his ear; her face gradually getting redder and redder with every movement of her lips.

Sanders quickly glances over at the two girls and lets out an obnoxious snort, amused by the ridiculous looks on their faces. Eri tries to stomp over to Sanders to give him a piece of her mind, but is stopped by Yua grabbing her shoulder.

"Hey, Eri," Yua whispers, leaning over to Eri, "Is 'honey' something embarrassing in this place? Like a weird thing couples d—?"

She's cut off mid-sentence by Eri forcefully sliding Yua's hand off of her shoulder, somewhat annoyed. She gives Yua a glare as if she had just asked or said something completely unnecessary. Confused and a little frightened by her friend's sudden change in mood, Yua takes a step away from Eri, frantically asking in a loud whispery voice, "H-hey! What'd I do?"

Eri lets out an annoyed sigh and loudly whispers back, "You shouldn't go assuming things like that, Yua. That always somehow gets me into trouble."

"I wasn't asking about you!" Yua loudly whispers, now somewhat mad at Eri's sudden and nasty mood, "I was just asking! How'd it suddenly r—ah!"

The girls' little squabble is quickly broken when Yua finds herself fixated on Zed and his tall blonde guest. Confused by Yua suddenly cutting herself off, Eri turns to face what Yua's so fixated on, only to find Zed quickly licking the tip of the tall blonde woman's nose.

"There wouldn't be any problem with it, though," he quietly tells her, giving her a warm smile.

The woman's face quickly flushes even more, becoming a deep red color as she frantically buzzes around the room and clutches at the edge of Sanders' counter before falling to her knees. Zed gives her an innocent look like he doesn't know why she reacted the way she did. However, Zed soon feels like someone is glaring daggers into his back and turns around, only to have Eri and Yua jump into his face. Before he can even utter a word, both girls bombard Zed with back-to-back questions:

"What was that?!"

"Why'd you suddenly lick her nose?"

"Are you guys i—?"

"Are you guys _dating_ ~?"

"How do you know her?"

"When did you realize that you _like_ her~?"

"Zed!"

"Y-yes?" he instinctively barks.

There's a small moment of silence as Eri glares Zed in the eyes. She glares at him so intensely that it quickly makes him more and more uncomfortable just being squished by the two of them. He nervously stares at her lips, wondering what she has to say about his little gesture, however, he's caught off-guard by Eri's glaring eyes welling up with barely noticeable tears.

"Are you a… a _player_ , Zed?" she quietly peeps.

Both Zed and Yua stare at Eri, completely confused by her sudden change from somewhat angry to almost a tiny bit heartbroken. Zed opens his mouth to try and answer her, but he jumps at the sudden sensation he feels at his lower back. He quickly turns around, only to find his blonde guest clutching it the bottom of his purple and gold-trimmed vest with her gloved hands. He somehow understands her wordless message and nods to show that he understands. The tall blonde woman gives him a shy little smile as Zed helps her up onto her feet. She grabs Zed by his wrist as she quickly shuffles into the dimly-lit hallway, dragging Zed closely behind. Yua looks over to Eri and starts to lightly nudge at her with her elbow.

"Heh… It looks like he got away with this one," she chuckles with a small, devious grin forming on her face.

Yua continues to lightly nudge at Eri with her elbow, hoping to get some sort of response—preferably a positive one. However, Eri stays silent with her eyes cast down to the floor, practically refusing to give Yua any sort of response. Her devious little grin begins to disappear as she wonders if she hurt her friend's feelings in some way. She gradually stops lightly nudging at Eri and bends down to try and look her in the face.

"H-hey, Eri. You okay?" she asks with a slightly worried tone, "Was it… something I said?"

Still nothing.

Sanders lets out another obnoxious snort and curtly adds in, "Maybe she likes someone she can't have, hm?"

Eri's head flicks up after Sanders' smarmy remark; her eyes are welling with small pools of tears and her face is a notable reddish color. She bites at her lower lip as if she wants to lash out at Sanders but doesn't want to at the same time. Sanders whistles a bit at the sight of Eri's red face and curtly remarks, "Hm? Don't like the truth? Suit yourself, _princess_."

He leaps over his scarlet counter and casually does a little strut into the dimly-lit hallway. Once his figure is completely out of Eri's sight, she takes a deep breath in and screams into the halls:

"YOU ARE SUCH A _JEEEERRRRRKKKK_!"

Yua is taken aback by her friend's sudden outburst. She throws her hands up over her face as she looks at Eri, who's now taking loud breaths looking as irritated as ever.

"E-Eri?" Yua peeps, "Where'd that come from?"

Eri exhales deeply one more time, pinches the bridge of her nose with one hand and gently grips at the hem of her purple-to-lilac dress over the left side of her chest. She turns to face Yua and instead of giving her the irritated glare she's expecting, Eri gives Yua a small smile and reassures her that she's okay. Yua lets out a big sigh of relief and props a smile up on her face.

"Oh man, I thought you were mad because of me!" she loudly says, patting at Eri's back, "I feel so much bet—!"

"Oh, no. I'm pretty mad at you too," Eri interjects, giving Yua a devious little grin, "You shouldn't go assuming things so wildly like that."

"You do the _same thing_ back home, y'know," Yua replies in a semi-annoyed tone of voice.

"I know!" Eri yelps as she quickly turns her head away from her friend.

Yua lightly slams both hands onto the top of Eri's head and shuffles them back and forth.

"Don't call me out on it like you don't do it too, ya little sneak!" she chuckles as she makes Eri's hair messier and messier.

The two girls giggle and chuckle to themselves as they both scratch at each other's heads, trying to make the other's hair messier. However, they're interrupted by a very soft-spoken and feminine-sounding voice that belongs to neither of them:

"H… Hello?"

Both girls immediately turn to face the entrance of the dimly-lit hallway, where a small black hand grasps at the corner. Two slim antennae poke out from the darkness of the hallway, following a pair of big brown eyes with blonde strands of hair neatly curling around the frame of the beautiful porcelain face. She looks up at Yua and Eri very shyly as her face holds a tiny tinge of red.

"H… Hello…?" she quietly peeps.

"Zed's lady-friend!" Yua instinctively blurts out.

The blonde woman retreats a bit back into the hallway and jumps a bit at the sight of Zed casually walking passed her. Once he's completely out of the dimly-lit hallway, Zed turns around to his blonde guest, offers her a hand and says, "It's okay! I bet they can understand you now."

Cautiously, the blonde woman takes Zed's hand and slowly shuffles up next to him. She keeps her head tilted downwards, taking short glances at the two girls. She takes a deep breath inward, fixing her stance and now faces Eri and Yua directly. The two are somewhat impressed by the blonde woman's sudden regal air to her, as her face is no longer such a bold red color, she isn't as embarrassed and doesn't seem so timid and fragile. She grips Zed's hand, adjusts the bits of blonde curls that practically hug at the frame of her face and lets out a small "Ahem!" as she readily introduces herself:

"I am Princess Boebe Hollis II of the Second Eastern Colony. I sincerely apologize for the little… 'display'… I put on earlier, and I'm very pleased to be acquainted with the two of you young ladies."

She greets them with a small warm smile and a curtsy afterwards. Eri and Yua, still amazed by this woman's sudden "transformation," applaud her and introduce themselves as well. Yua also notices Boebe and Zed still holding hands and lightly nudges at Eri while giggling to herself. Boebe catches Yua's strange reaction to her introduction and notices that she's giggling at something else. Her face flushes as she frantically snatches her hand away from Zed's and hides both of her hands behind her, fidgeting about. Zed finds himself a bit shocked by Boebe suddenly ripping her hand out of his and snatches it back, now gripping it tight enough so that Boebe will have a bit of trouble trying to get it back. Boebe, however, lets out a small but audible gasp at the moment Zed snatches her hand from behind her and tries to face away from him and the two girls as her face becomes even more flushed.

Suddenly, a scream that sounds like it's from outside echoes through the room:

"DAMN YOU!"

Eri recognizes the scream and tightly grabs at Yua's arm. Yua tries to comfort her friend, who's now shaking right next to her. However, Zed and Boebe don't seem the least bit surprised or frightened by the sudden scream—in fact, they seem confused by Eri's reaction to it. Eri looks up at Zed, who tilts his head over to the side and gives her an innocent look, a look that tells her that he doesn't understand why she reacted the way she did.

A moment of silence passes.

"What was that?" Yua asks the two, "Whose v—?"

She's cut off by another sudden scream:

"DAMN YOU!"

Eri recoils again, this time almost trying to hide herself behind Yua's body. She covers both of her ears with her hands as she tries to calm herself down by lowly repeating to herself, "Okay, okay. Okay, okay."

Boebe kneels over to Eri, patting at her head and gently twirling strands of her brown hair. Noticing her frightened expression, she worriedly asks, "Why are you scared, little lady?"

"D-didn't you hear that?!" Eri asks loudly, practically shouting her question into Boebe's face.

"Don't be scared, Eri!" Zed energetically barks, "Those are just the birds!"

"B… birds?" Yua asks, unable to understand how any sort of bird could mimic such a scream.

"Birds! Yes!" Zed parrots back.

Boebe picks herself up onto her feet and pats at her dress.

"They'll mimic any loud noise they h—ear?!"

Boebe jumps at the last word of her sentence by Zed suddenly clasping her hand again. She places her other hand onto her blushing face and tries to hide behind it. Yua helps Eri onto her feet and gently pats her on the back to calm her down if she's still panicking a bit. Eri moves away from Yua's hand and reassures her that she's okay with another small smile. Zed walks up to Eri and pats her head with his open hand.

"I'll show you!" he says with a toothy grin, "They'll copy any loud noise!"

Zed rushes for another corner of the room where a strange, unstable-looking spiral staircase stands. Still tightly holding onto Boebe's hand, Zed drags her along as he excitedly runs up the staircase. Yua quietly giggles to herself as she tries to walk up the odd-looking staircase, gripping at the railing so she wouldn't fall off in any sort of way. Eri makes her way over to the spiral staircase as soon as Yua is seemingly out of sight. She grips onto the railing with one hand, gripping tightly at the hem of her dress that lies over the left side of her chest with her other hand as she inches her way up each of the steps. The more Eri walks up those oddly shaped steps, the more pain seems to shoot up into her chest. She tries to gradually pick up speed but loses some of that speed when she feels another sudden sharp pain in her chest.

"It… it hurts…"

* * *

 **QUICK AUTHOR'S NOTE: I just want to quickly point out that you pronounce Boebe's name like "bee-bi." It's just like Phoebe, but with a B-sound in the beginning. Also, thanks for reading!**


	4. Chapter FOUR: The First 'Night'

Eri makes it to the top of the odd spiral staircase and there she finds an elderly woman peacefully sitting in a rocking chair, reading aloud to three small redheaded children that sit around her. The room itself looks like it is made entirely out of a quilt; the floor and the walls all feel warm and plush as Eri rests against it. Light pours out from the large window behind the elderly woman, showing nothing but the vibrant purple leaves that flow off of milky white tree branches. Zed and Boebe are standing at the far corner of the large window, opposite from the elderly woman, as Yua stands over three small redheads, seemingly interested in the elderly woman's story.

Eri, still clutching at her chest, inches over to Yua and taps her shoulder. Yua quickly turns around and is shocked by Eri's exhausted and somewhat sickly demeanor.

"Eri! You don't look too good," she says, resting her hand on Eri's forehead to check her temperature, "…! And your forehead is burning!"

Yua quickly glances around the room to see if anyone else shows any concern or panic, however, everyone else in the room simply looks puzzled by Yua's shifty-eyes.

"Is everything alright?" Boebe calls over from the other side of the large room.

"Dearie, what's wrong?" the elderly woman asks.

Yua walks over to the elderly woman and worriedly tells her that her friend may have caught something. Instead of showing concern, like how Yua expects, the elderly woman just waves her hand and scoffs.

"Oh, dearie, don't overreact," she says in a sweet yet very sarcastic tone, "It happens with every person of her type that end up here!"

Boebe hovers over and assures Yua that Eri's condition isn't too serious. She gently places a hand on Yua's shoulder and claims that all she needs to do is sleep it off—that she'll be fine in the morning. However, one of the smaller redheads' arms shoot upwards and wiggles around.

"Yes, dearie? What is it?" asks the elderly woman.

The small redhead stands up and immediately points at Yua, loudly asking, "But Granny! Why isn't this one feeling sick too?!"

"Oh… oh my," is all the old woman can say after being asked such a question. Yua, however, puffs out her chest and lets out a small but haughty laugh.

"Well, kid. It's because your big sis here is stubborn!" she scoffs, "E-Eri's pretty stubborn too, but in the time she's known me, I've never gotten sick once!"

Yua lets out a prideful little snort while Boebe and the elderly woman stare at her completely confused. The little redhead sits back down on the floor with the other, staring up at Yua suspiciously. The slightly older redhead pokes at his sibling's face, showing him a childish grin, however, it disappears as his face suddenly turns into a more serious one. He takes a quick look at Yua—still puffing her chest out—and says under his breath:

"Maybe she's not human."

Eri catches the boy's words and is a bit horrified by them, but no one else around her seems to catch this. What's even more strange is that Zed is just simply staring outside of the window, not joining everyone else in their shenanigans. Almost as if there's something more important outside of the window. As Eri watches him closely, Zed takes a deep breath in.

"HOLY CRAP, IT'S FRIGGIN' _HUGE_!" he suddenly screams out the window.

He takes a few short breaths and turns around only to be greeted with faces full of confusion. The little redheads, however, seem to find it comical; the older-looking one even holding his sides while loudly laughing.

"Da—?"

"Wait for it!" he blurts out, holding up his pointer finger against his lips.

The room remains silent, waiting for something that only Zed seems to know about. However, everyone other than Yua and Eri seem to catch onto what Zed wants them to wait for, as the elderly woman goes steadily goes back to reading her storybook to the three little redheads. Boebe buzzes over to Zed's side, where he hastily wraps her arm around his. Yua coughs aloud and helps Eri over to Zed and Boebe, but stops in her tracks when Zed's scream from earlier parrots back from the flowing purple leaves outside.

"HOLY CRAP, IT'S FRIGGIN' _HUGE_!" echoes through the room seemingly made up of quilts, startling nobody else except Eri and Yua.

Zed turns his head over to face Eri, showing her a childishly toothy grin and barking, "See! I told you, Eri!"

"… B-but… what's _doing_ that?" Eri asks, seemingly becoming more and more exhausted as she stays in the quilt room.

"The birds!" he barks, playfully shuffling Boebe and himself around.

Boebe quietly giggles to herself, finding Zed's excitement over little birds adorable.

"Can… you _see_ these so-called 'birds'?" Eri asks again.

Zed stops shuffling around and his ears perk up. He nudges Boebe's cheek with the side of his face, then quickly turns away from Eri and Yua in order to whisper something into where someone would think Boebe's ear is supposed to be. She giggles to herself some more, placing her other hand over her mouth as she looks away from Eri and Yua. The two girls wait for whatever nonsensical kind of answer they'll be getting—Eri being more impatient.

Once it seems like he's whispered everything he needed to whisper to Boebe, Zed faces Eri and Yua, this time with a big devious grin plastered across his face as he snickers loudly. Whatever he told Boebe must've been pretty funny, because now Zed can barely say a few words without snickering or bursting into tiny fits of laughter.

"S… So you wanna… s-see one?" he asks them, still unable to speak without laughing.

"Well, _yeah_ ," Eri answers impatiently, "Why's that so 'fun—'?"

"W-well… okay!" Zed barks, cutting Eri off before she could finish her question.

In one swift motion, Zed grabs a hold of Boebe's tiny waist, throws her out of the window and into the endlessly flowing purple leaves outside. He throws her so effortlessly that it is due to either Boebe being as light as the bug she resembles so much of or Zed being a lot stronger than he looks. Either way, a thin snowy-haired man hurling a delicate-looking blonde beauty out of a large window and into the dense treetops directly outside would shock just about anybody. Eri and Yua rush over to the window and frantically look for any sign of Boebe outside; Zed just chuckling to himself as he watches their panicky movements.

"W-why'd you do that?!" Yua asks, pulling down at Zed's sleeve in order to get him to make eye contact.

"To help you see the birds!" he barks with a toothy grin.

"How is this going to help us see birds?!" Yua frantically asks again.

"Boebe's getting one!" he simply replies.

Zed just gives Yua an innocent look as if throwing a woman out of a window was a normal, everyday occurrence to him. Yua's grip on Zed's white sleeve grows tighter as she gets more and more frustrated, but her focus on Zed's strange behavior is broken by Eri letting out an "Ah!" which is followed up by a soft buzzing noise.

As the soft buzzing gradually grows louder, the flowing purple leaves start to rustle around. Everyone else focuses their attention on the direction the buzzing is coming from as the elderly woman carefully puts the story book she was reading earlier on top of what looks like an empty fireplace. The buzzing grows louder and louder until it sounds like the source of the noise is directly in front of Zed and the two girls, then suddenly, Boebe flutters forth from the flowing purple leaves outside, tightly clasping something in her arms as she remains covered in silky purple leaves. She walks over to the two girls and reveals to them what she has brought into the room.

It's an odd-looking bird-like creature whose feathers seem to be the exact same color as the flowy leaves on the milky white tree branches outside. It has much longer feathers particularly around where one might think its eyes are, drooping very low, almost down to the bottom of Boebe's yellow and black-striped dress. The feathers on its wings are also particularly long, almost looking too big for the odd-looking bird-like creature. Its tail feathers are a distinguishable purple-to-white color with the feathers farther from the center of its tailbone being shorter and whiter by comparison to the longer tail feathers. The bird-like creature's talons could not be seen as many of its drooping purple feathers covered them, but its beak looks to be very crooked, stout, and has a sort of pastel-like coloring. The bird itself seems to be very small compared to all of its low-drooping feathers and doesn't move much despite Eri and Yua being so close by.

Eri reaches out to touch the purple bird-creature and as her arm draws closer, the bird-like creature opens its pastel-colored beak and lets out a hissing noise. Eri quickly brings her hand back, but the bird-like creature's hissing only gets louder.

"That's such… a gross noise," Yua says blankly, "Especially coming from a… a _bird_?"

"They… all don't do this," Boebe adds in, also a bit disturbed by the creature's continued hissing, "… Just the 'old ones'."

Boebe carefully flutters over to the large window only to quickly toss the purple bird-like creature out like it's something gross that needs to be thrown away. The creature's hissing can be heard as it quickly plummets towards the ground. There's no noise made that can confirm whether or not the creature landed, causing Yua and Eri to think that either the room they're in is too high up from the ground to be able to hear a thud or that the odd bird-like creature was able to fly away before crashing into the ground below. As the two girls try to take a glimpse of what could be under the large window, all they're able to see are the flowing purple leaves that seem to droop from their white branches endlessly; no signs of solid ground anywhere.

With the odd-looking bird-like creature out of the room, Eri's mind goes back to her mysterious condition after she feels another jolt of pain from her chest. She starts to sweat more than usual, her head starts aching, the jolts of pain from her chest start to become more painful and her body feels so hot that it becomes harder to breathe or even keep her eyes open. Eri pushes herself away from the large window so that she won't end up falling out of it, falling to the quilt-like floor instead. Every sound around her gradually starts to sound muffled and Eri can't even seem to open up her eyes again after forcing them shut from the fall.

"… Hurts…" is all that she can squeeze out of her mouth as she tries to get someone in the room to help her. Curling up into a semi-fetal position, Eri grabs her head tightly as if that would somehow get her huge headaches to stop. She can feel herself being lifted up by something or someone, but still can't open her eyes to see who or what is now carrying her. Somehow the heavy amounts of pain she was feeling earlier start to feel somewhat lighter. Everything about herself strangely feels as light as a feather like she's starting to drift away somewhere.

* * *

Eri's dark brown eyes flash open, jumping up as if she's suddenly woken up from being in the middle of a realistic nightmare. She's drenched in a pool of her own sweat and is breathing heavily. The first thing Eri notices about the room she's found herself in is that it's dark, but some sort of moonlight streams into the room through a large window behind her.

She can see that she's been tucked in by someone in a bed that's barely bigger than she is. Looking around, she begins to realize that she's in the small white room where she and Yua reunited earlier in the day, if it happened in the same day. She can see the small white park-bench still covered in tiny vines and leaves in the middle of the room, as well as another bed of similar size to hers across the room. Eri can barely make out who's sleeping in that bed, so she quietly steps out of her bed to get a closer look. It doesn't take long before Eri can see that the other person sleeping is just Yua snoring away with her limbs spread all over the bed.

' _Did Yua always snore?_ ' she mentally asks herself as she quietly shuffles back over to her side of the room.

Careful not to make too much noise, Eri rests her bottom on the small white bed that's still wet with her sweat and takes a look around the room again. Despite it just being all white, the moonlight pouring from the window gives the plain room a sort of "mysterious charm" as the white of the room causes the moonlight to make it look like it's causing the whole room to glow faintly. Eri looks down at her feet, which are still bare, but notices that she's no longer wearing the gradient purple-to-lilac dress with deep violet rose petals sewn onto it—instead, she has on what seems to be a plain white nightgown with very skinny and loose spaghetti-straps around her shoulders.

' _And… when did I change clothes?_ '

Eri can feel her face get a bit hot at the thought of someone undressing her while she was unconscious, lightly smacking herself on her forehead in order to get her to think of something else. However, she only gets even more embarrassed at the thought of Zed undressing her while she was unconscious. Eri quickly grabs the not-as-sweaty pillow she found herself sleeping on earlier and slams her face into it, lightly kicking her feet up and down.

About a solid minute passes and Eri moves the pillow down to her chest, hugging it tightly as she quietly asks herself, "Ah… What am I thinking…?"

She remembers Zed suddenly licking the tip of Boebe's nose, how he was so stubborn to keep Boebe's hand locked together with his; those moments made Eri's chest hurt a bit. She shakes her head to try and stop those memories from coming back, making herself believe that they would make the heavy chest pains from earlier come back as well. Eri lets out a small sigh into the damp pillow and gently places it back on the bed. She can't seem to fall back to sleep. Not when she starts to think about how everyone she knows back in her world is doing.

' _How long have I been gone? Is time somehow slower here? I wonder if mom or dad are worrying themselves sick over me… and grandma, too…_ '

Thoughts like those clouded around in her head, making it harder to fall asleep. What if she's been lost in this world for years and can't even realize it? If she's been going for years on end, has her family just pronounced her dead and moved on? And what about all of the friends she left behind? The ones she walked home with regularly? This only makes Eri even more restless.

Letting out a quiet but heavy sigh, Eri hops off of the white bed and silently paces around the room. However, as soon as she turns towards the large window that's pouring moonlight into the room, the sound of a door being cautiously opened up can be heard. Eri quickly turns around, and finds the same dark doorway that suddenly appeared last time she was in this room.

Inside of the doorway look considerably darker compared to the rest of the faintly-glowing white room, and this notable darkness from the doorway puts Eri on edge—almost as if something could just lunge out at her from it. She quickly, but quietly, hops over to the now cold white bed and throws the blanket over herself. This was something she always does whenever feeling uneasy in the middle of the night and she's been doing so ever since she was tiny.

"One, two, three, four, five. Five, four, three, two, one," she whispers to herself. Suddenly, a small gust of wind rushes by her bedside, flicking the bottom of the blanket off of her legs. Eri hastily tries to adjust the blanket over her legs without having to uncover her face, but the blanket eventually slips off of her face as she does this.

No windows are open.

No one else is in the room.

Eri looks over at the doorway on the wall opposite of the large window behind her. She takes a deep breath and stares deeply into the doorway's darkness before finally getting up and tip-toeing inside of it.

The halls are still dark—almost pitch-black even—but, with the moonlight pouring into the small white room, there's at least _some_ light that helps Eri see what's around her. That is, until she takes about five or six steps forward. Whether or not the doorway entrance somehow closed behind her is uncertain, but Eri now finds herself completely buried in pitch-black darkness.

She gradually makes her way through the dark halls, feeling her way around. It seems to be a straight and narrow hallway from what she can tell. Nothing seems to have been put into said hallway since she hasn't bumped into anything yet.

About one to two minutes pass as she continues to carefully maneuver through the pitch-black hallway. Nothing different has happened other than Eri having to make a few turns, but that all changes when her hand presses against something on the wall she's feeling. Eri stops in her tracks and tries to make it back to whatever she pressed and is suddenly met with a bright blue inscription on the walls. Having her eyes being exposed to so much darkness for quite a while, the sudden brightness of the inscription startles Eri as she instinctively turns away. She frantically smacks her hand back on the walls and feels a doorknob—one that she's 99% sure wasn't there before, from what she could tell. Her eyes gradually adjust to the light coming out from the inscription, noticing that the inscription is just a series of curved lines, squiggles, small circles, crosses and dots; seemingly written in a dead or unknown language.

"How would anyone know how to read this?" Eri quietly asks herself, bringing her face closer or farther away from the glowing inscription while squinting her eyes like it'd somehow allow her to read it in a language she can fluently understand.

She starts to feel the halls getting colder and colder, like there's a large draft somewhere. Looking down at her bare feet, Eri notices the same blue light from the unreadable inscription coming from what looks like another room behind a door she's sure also wasn't there before. Eri reaches for where she believes the knob to this mysterious door is but pulls her arm back when a gust of cold air rushes passed. She hugs herself tightly to keep warm as the white nightgown she's wearing feels very loose and ready to just fly off of her body. Forcing her eyes shut, hugging herself close and crouching down against the walls, Eri takes a few deep breaths which help her calm down. She's afraid that something may be coming after her—that the menacing people she first met may be coming after her. She doesn't know why they would or if they even would need to kill her, but the ominous feeling refuses to leave Eri's mind. When the cold gusts of wind start to wind down, Eri gradually opens her eyes.

She's met with a strange glowing bug standing on top of what looks like another person's fingertip with two of its legs. The bug flutters up a few times but stays in the air for only a few short moments before landing back on the fingertip.

"Hey," a voice calls out from behind the glowing bug, " _What_ are you?"

Completely caught off-guard by the sudden voice, Eri remains silent. She doesn't know what to say, let alone she doesn't know if this voice belongs to a being with no intent on hurting her.

Some bits of shuffling can be heard and Eri soon finds herself met with a pair of icy blue eyes that seem capable of seeing right through her. The left eye, however, sudden disappears. The strange glowing bug gradually begins to disappear as well, until a vibrant blue flame replaces it. The flame's glow is considerably brighter than the bug's; seemingly blanketing the hallway in a piercing blue light.

In front of Eri stands a man with a long, dark mess of hair. His left is covered with his other hand and he seems to be wearing oriental robes similar to Sander's. The man has many scratches all over his face, neck, forearms and legs, as if he were just in a struggle not too long ago. Eri then notices that the man has a pair of foxlike ears the same color as his disheveled hair once they start to twitch. She tries to look over to see if he has any tails behind him, but the man motions her head away.

"What are you doing?" he asks in a threatening tone of voice, suspicious of why Eri is even around, "And I asked what you're supposed to be."

"I, uh. I'm… human," she quietly peeps.

"'Scuse me?" he rudely asks, "I couldn't hear you."

"I-I'm human," she quietly peeps again.

"What?"

"I'm a human!"

"Ooh, looks like this one's got a bad temper!" he whistles, flashing a devious grin as two tails from behind him flick upwards.

He stands up on his feet and pulls Eri up by her hair. She slaps his hand away after wincing at the rude fox-man suddenly pulling at her hair. This seems to surprise him as he pulls his hand away from her, covering his left eye again.

"What… What's wrong with your eye?" Eri asks while patting her hair back down.

"This is normal," is all the dark-haired fox-man tells her.

He turns around and Eri can hear the twisting of a doorknob. Suddenly more blue light pours into the dark hallway as the blue flame from earlier dissipates. It seems that the fox-man was able to open up the door Eri was trying to open moments before. However, without any time to react, Eri is taken by the hand and is dragged into the room, the door shutting behind her.

"Hey!" she squeaks, ripping her hand away from the fox-man's, "You can't just pull someone into your room suddenly like that!"

"What makes you think that this is my room?" he curtly asks.

"Well… you wouldn't just pull me into someone _else's_ room," she answers, completely unsure of this man's manners.

"You _do_ look kinda homely," the fox-man says, "But you've got a nice pair on you, so I guess that counts."

Eri sucks her teeth at the fox-man's back-handed compliment and crosses her arms. She takes a look around the room, noticing that it look a lot like a cheap Eastern-styled apartment. What sticks out to her is a big blackish curtain that looks like it leads to a darker room compared to the one she's in. Eri notices that the fox-man must've shuffled into another room and takes this as an opportunity to see what could be behind that dark curtain.

She carefully tip-toes over to it until she's standing directly in front of it. For some strange reason, Eri can feel a large amount of pressure the more she stretches her hand out to the curtain, like there's something she shouldn't and isn't supposed to see. She grabs at an edge of the curtain and takes a deep breath. As Eri gets ready to pull it out of the way, she feels something suddenly slip into her nightgown and wiggle around her chest area. She lets out a gasp and falls back, landing right on her bottom. However, whatever is in her nightgown doesn't seem to stop shifting around and seems to just be fondling her breasts at this point.

"Dang, they're nicer than I thought," a masculine voice says from behind Eri, "They… They're really soft."

She quickly turns around and finds herself in the fox-man's lap as he has his way with her breasts. Squeezing at them, swirling them around, messaging them up and down; Eri tries to break free but his grip on her breasts get tighter every time she tries. She lets out a gasp when she feels the fox-man's chest up against her back. He continues to fondle her breasts, turning Eri's face towards his. Her face is red with the embarrassment of having a man she barely knows have his way with a part of her body, but the fox-man's piercing blue eyes blankly stare back. He abruptly stops, giving her a devilish grin as he thumps her forehead.

"Wow, you were really getting into it," he chuckles.

He looks Eri up and down, trying to find anything else he can see has "appealing" other than her breasts. An awkwardly long minute passes with him blankly staring at her try to adjust her nightgown so that it's less loose. Eri nervously shuffles about, maintaining no eye contact with the fox-man since she's embarrassed enough already. When Eri's back is turned, the fox-man breaks the awkward silence by blurting out a more embarrassing question:

"So you don't touch yourself?"

"Of course not!" she shouts, immediately turning back around so she can yell that answer right into the fox-man's face.

He lets out a laugh at the sight of Eri's red face, telling her that she's a pretty weird girl. Eri bites at her lower lip and shouts again, "Only a complete **jerk** would ask something like that!" putting emphasis on the word "jerk."

"A jerk named Arin," he adds in.

"W-what?" Eri asks, caught off-guard by his sudden "introduction"—if a person can call it that.

"Arin," he barks, sniffing at his left hand, "That's my name."

"Why… tell me this?" she asks again.

He hops onto his feet, now flicking four tails upwards. Arin easily towers over Eri's five-foot tall body; seemingly taller than Zed, but not too tall. From what she could make out in the dark hallway, Arin's hair seems to be longer. It's completely black and is still a total mess. He sniffs at his left hand again and says to Eri, "It's 'cause it'd be easier to call me that instead of 'the jerky perverted fox-man'."

Ironically, Arin reminds Eri a lot of Sanders. Too much like him, in fact. The thought of the two of them ganging up on her to ridicule or make fun of her in some way makes her even more embarrassed and a bit upset. Suddenly, a pair of piercing blue eyes look directly into her dark brown ones. With a smile similar to a child's, Arin stares excitedly into Eri's eyes with his four tails wagging behind him.

"You know Old Man Sandy?" he asks.

"Old M… I-I think so," Eri replies.

She can't understand Arin's sudden mood-change from perverted creep to excited puppy, but this is may mean that he won't be groping at her breasts while she's asleep.

"Well… he doesn't like being called 'Old Man Sandy,' but he's still really cool! He's about my height, red eyes, sandy hair, wears lots of red… you know!"

"I-I do!" Eri squeaks, trying to get him to calm down.

"You do?!"

"Yes!"

"Wait," Arin says, his tone changing from childishly excited back to his deeper voice, "I thought he didn't have any interest in human women."

"Ah! W-well… He does seem pretty disgusted by me, though." Eri quickly adds.

"That'd make sense. I mean, you'll find a lot of people like that here," Arin tells her as he scratches at his right ear, "Though some humans have a few nice parts on them too."

After hearing this, Eri quickly covers her chest with both arm. This somehow gets Arin to laugh again and he pats her head with the hand he's been sniffing at.

"I also noticed that you smell like you've got a buddy with you," Arin snickers as he scratches a bit at his right eye, "Care to take me to her?"

Eri scoffs at Arin's half-handed attempt of asking her to let him flirt with Yua. She slaps his left hand off of her head and turns the other way with a "Hmph!" to add to her obvious disapproval.

"Ooh, someone's a little sassy too," he says blankly, adding in a little whistle at the end.

Annoyed by his little remark, Eri turns herself back around, but has bed sheets, a heavy blanket and a pillow thrown at her. She tries to stay grounded from the sudden "attack," but she somehow manages to slip on the bedsheets and fall onto the floor.

"W-what was that for?!" she asks loudly, pulling the blanket and sheets off of her face.

"Well, it's 'nighttime', I think," Arin replies, putting air-quotes around the phase "nighttime," "And humans need to sleep a bunch, if I'm remembering that right."

Eri stares at Arin, finding his rather rough act of kindness surprising after he fondled her breasts earlier without warning. Just to make sure—even if this is a pretty naïve way of doing so—Eri shyly asks if he'd try groping her body in her sleep.

"What?" he barks, "Can't hear you."

Eri bites onto her lower lip and struggles to ask again, "A… are you going… to try anything…?"

" _What_?" he barks louder.

"Are you going to try a… a-anything d… _dirty_ … on me in my sleep?"

"Can't hear you~!" he says in a mocking tone.

"Are you going to try anything dirty in my sleep?!" Eri shouts.

She figures that he could hear her the first time and is simply trying to tease her by making her ask again and again. She quickly shuffles over to the corner of the room farthest from Arin's current position and starts laying out the bed sheet, blanket and pillow.

"Oh, so you'll be fine on the floor?" Arin asks her.

"Of course I will," she replies, still frustrated from earlier, "I don't see any beds around."

"There are. Just in the other rooms."

She doesn't give him any other response. Arin simply takes Eri's silence as an "I'm still fine" and walks out of the room. Eri didn't see any light switches on the walls, but simply figures that there must've been one for Arin to be able to suddenly make the room go dark when he left.

Letting out an annoyed sigh, Eri snuggles into the heavy blanket and tries her best to fall asleep.


End file.
